Who Was Niño Guerrero? The Gang Leader Killed In US-Venezuela Strike

US President Donald Trump announced late on Friday that the United States and Venezuela had jointly killed Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, known as Niño Guerrero and identified as the top leader of Tren de Aragua — a criminal organisation the Trump administration designated as a foreign terrorist organisation early in its second term.

Trump posted a ten-second video showing a bird's-eye view of a building with a metal roof being destroyed in a strike. He described the attack as "swift and lethal" and said the US would "find these vicious murderers and drug lords anytime, anyplace, and send them to the depths of hell where they belong."

Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodríguez confirmed the joint operation in a separate statement, saying it was carried out in the southeast of Bolívar state. The collaboration was notable given the long-strained relationship between Washington and Caracas.

Who Was Niño Guerrero?

Guerrero Flores had been a fugitive for years. Born in Maracay, the capital of Venezuela's Aragua state, in 1983, he accumulated a criminal record stretching back to 2005, when he was first arrested for the murder of an official.

He escaped from the notorious Tocorón Prison in 2012, was recaptured in 2013, and was subsequently sentenced in 2016 to more than 17 years for crimes including intentional homicide, drug trafficking, weapon concealment and criminal association.

Tren de Aragua took its current shape largely from within Tocorón Prison, where the gang's control became so absolute — with gang-built swimming pools and restaurants inside the facility — that imprisonment amounted to little practical constraint on Guerrero Flores. When Venezuelan authorities retook full control of the prison in October 2023, they found he had already disappeared and remained at large until Friday's strike.

The US State Department had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture, and in December 2025 a New York federal court charged him with ordering and facilitating acts of terrorism within the US.

Under his leadership, Tren de Aragua expanded well beyond Venezuela, establishing a presence in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Brazil and Costa Rica, with alleged links also reported in Mexico. Spanish police dismantled the first known Tren de Aragua cell in the country last year, shortly after arresting Guerrero Flores' brother Gerso in Barcelona in 2024. A CNN investigation documented the gang's presence in the US as early as 2023.

The gang has sat at the centre of the Trump administration's immigration and border enforcement agenda.